President Obama, please tear down this wall. In the midst of your meteoric rise to become Harvard Law Review’s first black president in 1990, the Berlin Wall, which symbolized the Cold War, was reduced to rubble. But twenty years later, as you complete your second month in office as the nation’s first black president, I fear you have erected another wall between America and the world.
I refer to the Grassley-Sanders provision in the economic stimulus package, which restricts financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits called H-1B visas. This makes it almost impossible for these companies to hire foreign employees for specialized work.
This provision, Mr. President, is profoundly un-American. I know this wasn’t your idea and was the brainchild of two protectionist senators. I also realize that getting such a legislative monstrosity bulldozed through the Congress requires some tough compromises. But you should not have put your left-hooked signature on a document so antithetical to this nation’s values and so detrimental to its future.
As a student of international relations and a well-read, cerebral politician, you know as well as I do that rejecting the world’s top talent will harm our economy. In which alternate universe does it make sense to prevent United States companies from hiring the brightest when they are most in need of bright ideas?
Every study I’ve read confirms the centrality of immigrants to American prosperity. Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate at Harvard Law School, says immigrants founded more than half of Silicon Valley start-ups in the last decade and were inventors in a quarter of all international patent applications filed from Washington in 2006. A study by William R. Kerr of Harvard Business School and William F. Lincoln of University of Michigan found that when H-1B visas decreased, so did patent applications filed by immigrants in the U.S. I could go on sir, but you get the point: less visas, less innovation.
Senators Grassley and Sanders may want to save American jobs (and their own electoral prospects) during this economic malaise. But their humanitarian impulses are based more on hype than fact. The truth is, companies aren’t flocking to hire foreign workers in large numbers. The National Foundation for American Policy, in a report released last month, found that the percentage of foreigners hired into the workforce of the nation’s top banks was negligible — 0.05% for Citigroup and 0.03% for Bank of America. NFAP also found in March 2008 that for every H-1B position that they had requested, U.S. technology companies had increased their employment by five workers. Foreigners aren’t pocketing American jobs en masse; companies are selectively hiring a few top-notch talents.
At first, I thought I should warn you that, just like during the Great Depression in the early 1930s, protectionism will exacerbate our economic woes. That, if these policies continue, the world’s best and brightest will sell their talent elsewhere and America’s competitive advantage will erode. That U.S. companies who can’t grab the cream of the world’s crop will outsource even more jobs due to their dwindling profitability, hence slashing even more U.S. jobs.
Sadly sir, most of this is already occurring. As Wadhwa notes, as of September 2006, there were over a million educated and skilled professionals waiting to get a green card, but only 120,000 were available. In 2006, Congress also hacked the H-1B visa limit down by a third from 195,000 a year to 65,000. As a result, tens of thousands of highly skilled workers have already fled the United States to New Delhi, Beijing and Canberra. America is already losing the battle for the future Googles and Apples of the world. The truth is, as renowned economist Jagdish Bhagwati put it, no matter what kind of depression we are in, “a lot of our progress and prosperity depends on having such people”.
What can you do about this, Mr. President? Well, two years ago, former President George W. Bush begged Congress to reverse its H-1B cap cut. For him, it was simple: “I think it’s a mistake not to encourage more really bright folks to fill jobs here in America”. But I’m not naïve, sir. I realize that trying to increase foreign visas during the current economic climate may be close to political suicide.
But I’ll tell you what you could do to tear down this wall. You could take a stand against all future legislative provisions that run contrary to the bedrock principles of the U.S. economy — openness and creativity. You could summon the piercing honesty you displayed during your “race speech” to tell the American people that while the economy is floundering now, it will tank if we undermine the formula that governed its decades-old success. And you could commit to increasing the H-1B count and scaling back the effects of these provisions after the economy gets back on its feet.
Because patriotism, as you’ve rightly said Mr. President, isn’t just about flag pins. It’s about defending this nation’s principles and values in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges, the way your presidential hero Abraham Lincoln did. And what would better symbolize the abiding commitment of America’s diverse president to core American principles than taking a stand for openness against the vices of protectionism? Now, that would be the kind of change I’d want to believe in.
Prashanth Parameswaran’s column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at p.parameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
Read More
KURTZWEIL: True financial aid must be transparent
By Paul Kurtzweil | 2 days agoThe implications and revelations of the lawsuit should inspire greater transparency at the University in order to ensure that financial aid is properly and equitably distributed.
SULLIVAN: Ramp up physical accessibility on Grounds
By Scarlett Sullivan | 4 days agoThe University must take responsibility for the inaccessibility of Grounds and work to promote accessibility for all students despite misguided laws.
EDITORIAL: Scapegoating students will not stop hazing
By Editorial Board | 6 days agoInstead of retroactively responding to extreme hazing allegations, we, and especially the University, must begin asking more probing questions about the role of fraternal organizations on Grounds.
